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| The Berlin Philharmonic with Simon Rattle at the Royal Festival Hall, 30 May 2018. Photograph: Monika Rittershaus |
Brahms called him a "country pumpkin," the Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick defined his work as a sequence of "empty and dull patches that stretch to unsparing lengths”; his Mass in F was declared unsingable - (he had to pay the Vienna Philharmonic eight months of his own salary to perform it) - but the composer Anton Bruckner persevered. He said:
"They want me to write in a different way. I could, but I must not. Out of thousands I was given this talent by God, only I. Sometime I will have to give an account of myself. How would the Father in Heaven judge me if I followed others and not Him?"
Is such self-assuredness evidence of a vain, self-conceited man - or someone with complete faith in God's providence? Whatever your view, one must admire Bruckner's unswerving sense of vocation!
